Remarks by Commissioner Várhelyi at the joint press conference with Aleksandar VUČIĆ, President of Serbia

Remarks by Commissioner Várhelyi

Mr President,

Good afternoon.

I am always very happy to be back in Serbia. This time I have even more time to spend here. I am very happy to see now all the work we have been doing in the last 5 years finally bearing fruit. And I think we are just after the 20^th anniversary of the last big-bang enlargement, which has brought greater prosperity, peace and stability to a region which at the border of a region which is at the border of Serbia. And I do hope that in the next Commission, we will see Serbia joining this region and joining by the end of the mandate.

Because it is clear for me that the next Commission will have to be an Enlargement Commission. The next Commission will have to put all of its work and effort to get the new members into the European Union. Because it is very clear what it has brought, what membership has brought, to Central and Eastern Europe. And we're very proud about the profound changes and transformation of the economies and the societies of these Member States. One of them is the country I know best.

So, we are making now all the tools, we are preparing all the momentum for the next Commission to be able to deliver on enlargement. And I'm very, very proud to be here with the Growth Plan not only adopted, but we are already starting the implementation. This is one of the topics that we have discussed today with the President. How to make this Growth Plan deliver as fast as we can. So, I do hope that with all the work that we're doing, you will see already the first results of this Growth Plan reaching Serbia, meaning the first payments arriving, subject to the delivery of the Reform Agenda; where the work is, I think, very close to finalization. So, we can move immediately to the phase where we help with the Growth Plan to accelerate the enlargement process in Serbia. Meaning accelerating reforms, meaning accelerating delivery of EU conditions for joining. And meaning as well, the delivery of access to the Single Market even before enlargement. Meaning, bringing benefits to the citizens and the businesses in Serbia, even before enlargement takes place.

It is crucial, therefore, that this Growth Plan not only goes ahead, but that the whole region acts as one to deliver it. The Growth Plan will not work, unless the region works as one, because the Common Regional Market is the backbone of this. So, no market integration without the Common Regional Market. It is very clear, since after all, the whole of the Western Balkans will at the end of the day become members of the European Union, and therefore, they will have the exact same treatment between one another as we have now between our own Member States. This is why this gradual integration - as it is called in Brussels - is going to be crucial, it is going to be critical.

This year we have already had one summit and I do hope that we will meet in Kotor with the President in the next one, where we will discuss this year's deliveries, where we will talk about the SEPA, the single euro payments area, where we will talk about the Green Lanes. These are initiatives all coming from the Balkans to integrate themselves faster.

This facility will of course provide additional funding because these efforts, these reforms are costly. Cannot hide the fact, that of course you cannot close an economic and social development gap if you have to spend more to keep up with the reforms. This is why the European Council has allocated - as we have proposed - an additional EUR 6 billion of funding. And with this package, together with the Economic and Investment Plan of EUR 30 billion, Serbia and the whole region will benefit from aid - aid intensity, as we call it in Brussels - comparable to current Cohesion and Structural Funds countries by the end of this multi annual financial framework, by 2027. This means that by 2027 all the possibilities are going to be there for the region to join the European Union. Because all the tools are there to deliver.

You have seen also the success of the Economic and Investment Plan. Something very close to my heart, something that we have done like never before, and something that is delivering. We have seen only in Serbia huge modernization in the railway sector, with EUR 2.2 billion of investments in the Belgrade-Nis high speed railway. We have seen the delivery starting with the new Children's Hospital here in Belgrade. Something that has been an outstanding endeavour of Serbia, something that we deliver together. We see the rolling out of electricity transmission systems. So, Serbia is on the move because the Economic and Investment Plan delivers.

Dear President, I also want to seize the occasion, and the momentum on enlargement to encourage you to continue to work on the EU path. Now that we have all the tools at hand, I think there is ample opportunity for Serbia to speed up the work. We have a new government in place. I will see the new ministers; I will also meet the new government tomorrow. And I'm very hopeful that with the new government we will see an even more steady pace of reforms, where we see delivery emerging even faster than before.

It is also clear that we need the democratic reforms to go ahead, we need to have the rule of law area moving ahead, where all the reforms will also be of paramount importance for our member states to be able to move ahead with the enlargement process.

Of course, one cannot forget about the need to aligning further with the EU foreign policy. This is again something that we have discussed and where we need Serbia to move along and to adjust its foreign policy more and more to EU foreign policy.

And finally, I want to congratulate the Speaker of the House for arriving at an agreement in the Parliament about the ODIHR recommendations. I think that this constructive and inclusive dialogue across the political spectrum was absolutely necessary. And I want to commend her for this. I'm going to see her later on Wednesday. And I do hope that with this now we can move to the repeated elections in the local elections, and that we will have all political parties participating.

And while I'm in Serbia and of course seeing what is in the forefront of the attention of the people in Serbia, but also Serbs at large in the region and outside the region, I think it is very important to share my thoughts on the draft UN resolution on the Srebrenica genocide. I want to absolutely disagree with those who would attribute the guilt of crime of genocide to a whole nation. Collective punishment has never been part of our values and can never be part of our values. I don't think that stigmatizing the Serbian nation with collective guilt is a viable choice. I don't think that this contributes to get over the horrors of the Balkan Wars; on the contrary. We know who have committed the crimes against humanity. These people must be held fully accountable for their deeds. We know this because there are judgments that need to be enforced, and we already have seen what the notion of collective guilt leads to. So, I think when we talk about Srebrenica, we should remember the victims, we should remember what has happened, but we should not spread collective guilt on one nation.

So, I think that with this, I'm very happy to start my visit, and I do hope that during these days with the new government, we can discuss all the details how to move Serbia even faster into the European Union.

Question

You said that you see new European Commission in the end of its term to accept new members, which is in only five-year time. When you say that, do you believe and do you think of entire region? How do you see the region of the Western Balkans? Or you refer to individual countries, and which countries are those?

And on the other hand, President Vucic mentioned non-alignment with foreign policy. Can that be a hinder for opening Cluster 3? You recently said you believe that Serbia, regarding all criteria, deserves urgent opening of Cluster 3.

Answer

I think it's very important that the door is open. If you look at only in the last two years, the number of times the leaders of the European Union - meaning the European Council itself - how many times have discussed enlargement and how many times it has reiterated that, the European Council and the European Union, therefore, wants to see enlargement.

Now we have re-established the momentum of it. Don't forget we had the previous Commission, which started out working by saying there will be no enlargement. I think by now we have overcome that time that we have lost. And not only we have overcome the time, but I think we have moved ahead at least by another five years during this mandate.

This is why you see the new methodology now working. This is why you see the Economic and Investment Plan being, I think, the most successful part of the whole of the EU budget; where we are delivering over 60 percent now of all the aid that we have programmed. This is why you see that the Growth Plan went through the very difficult budget negotiations without any change. This is a clear sign that needs to be understood here as well, that yes, Europe is now gearing up to welcome new members.

In five years, yes, it is perfectly possible. If you look back at the previous enlargement, it took exactly the last five years, so before 2004 you have seen, if you count back five years, it was 1999 when the whole process started to gain real traction, and then the critical moment and decisions were made in 2002.

So, the next Commission will have all the tools at its hands to deliver this enlargement.

Now we need to see also the new Commission being established as a Commission of Enlargement, but of course this is for the leaders of the European Council to pronounce themselves on this.

I hope that they will follow this, and they have not been working in vain to establish all these tools that we have in our hands. So, I think it is clear what is emerging, but of course now we need to make it irreversible.